Grace (29 page)

An hour after he arrived he encountered Melissa Porter, a friend from childhood, attending the ball in the company of her mother. As he often did when he saw Melissa at a town function, he courteously asked her to dance. Her calm friendliness and cool beauty washed over him like a soothing balm after his short, tumultuous relationship with
Grace. He felt so at ease in her presence that, after their dance, he remained by her side. He spent the better part of the evening talking and laughing with Melissa’s mother and their friends, to the great disappointment of all the matchmaking mamas whose hopes had momentarily risen.

The sight of Melissa’s gloved hand on his arm, and the fond smile on Trevor’s face as he looked down at her, definitely qualified as a titillating new topic for the gossipers. The whispers and suppositions began, further fueled by the rumor that had occasionally circulated over the years about a possible match between Trevor and Melissa, whose father owned property that marched along the boundaries of one of the estates owned by Trevor. Additionally, some of the assembled guests recalled that Trevor had, only a few days before, escorted Melissa to the theater. Still others remarked upon Grace’s conspicuous recent absence from society. Few knew she had been ill, and those who did know wondered if she were simply home nursing a broken heart.

The morning following the ball, Trevor paid a short call on Melissa, and found himself further impressed with her pleasant demeanor. If he gave any thought to Grace at all, he firmly pushed it from his mind.

Just after one o’clock, he’d received the first message from Grace, which he pointedly ignored. As the afternoon wore on, however, he found it increasingly difficult to concentrate on his work. Wayward images and unbidden thoughts of Grace kept popping into his head. Finally, with a snort of disgust, he’d quit working and gone to White’s for some cards and diverting conversation.

He had brooded, nearly silent, for the past hour, systematically divesting Gareth and Jonathon of their funds, remaining stoic despite repeated attempts to break him out of his mood. Trevor had just won yet another hand, causing
even the irrepressible Gareth to frown at a diminishing pile of chips, when the Duke of Blackthorne pulled up a chair.

“Oh, perfect,” Gareth muttered. Sebastian signaled for one of the circulating footmen to bring him a drink. “Good to see you, Thorne. You’re just what we needed to liven up this table.” The staid duke ignored him. Trevor, who usually evened out the mood of the group, remained quiet, gloomier than Gareth had ever seen him.

A footman arrived with Sebastian’s drink and set it on the table in front of him. He quietly made sure the other occupants of the table did not need anything before he vanished. Sebastian caught Gareth’s eye, nodded toward Trevor, and raised an inquiring eyebrow, prompting him for an explanation.

Gareth shrugged good-naturedly. “I can always count on big brother here to dampen my spirits—and upon you, Tremaine, to wet-blanket any entertaining notion I can come up with. Usually Hunt will oblige me by not being quite so morose, but I’ve yet to hear him utter more than the words ‘cut,’ ‘deal,’ ‘pass,’ or ‘fold’ in the last hour.” They all looked at Trevor.

The earl picked up the cards Jonathon had just dealt him. He steadfastly ignored Gareth’s jibe, an action that caused Sebastian to go so far as to raise
both
his eyebrows before turning his attention to his own cards. At a questioning look from Jonathon, Sebastian laid two cards face-down on the table, indicating he would like two more. Trevor shook his head, and Gareth took three cards. Sebastian waited a moment for everyone to reassemble their hands, then spoke. “I trust the Ackerly chit is recovering from her recent illness?”

Gareth looked at Trevor, who did not react, although a muscle tightened in his jaw momentarily. “I’m sure she’s doing fine,” he said with an indifferent shrug, then smoothly
raised the opening bet of seventy-five pounds by two hundred more. Jonathon and Sebastian immediately folded and sat back in their chairs to watch Gareth and Trevor play out the rest of the hand.

Gareth met Trevor’s upped bet with one of his own. “Two hundred seventy-five? Shall we make it an even three hundred?” He added his chips to the steadily increasing pile in the center of the table. “So, Miss Ackerly was fine when you saw her last?” He asked the question casually. He had no idea whether Trevor even remembered their conversation of the previous morning. He got his answer seconds later when Hunt’s eyes registered nothing more than cold anger, and he answered with a curt nod.

Gareth grinned as Trevor called the bet and laid down four kings. “Take your winnings, Hunt,” he said cheerfully, pushing back his chair and stretching his legs. “And I’m afraid I’ll have to call it a night after that disastrous hand,” he added. Frowning at the empty space on the table where his chips had been stacked, he lit a cheroot and inhaled deeply.

Laying down his cards and leaving the pile of chips he had won in the center of the table, Trevor did likewise. He turned to signal a footman for a drink, then suddenly stiffened. A short, bowlegged footman in Egerton livery was approaching, accompanied by the proprietor of White’s. Trevor immediately recognized O’Reilly. The pair stopped in front of Trevor. The little footman bowed nervously, visibly trembling at the look of eloquent displeasure on the earl’s face.

“I was instructed, my lord, to deliver this to you directly.” O’Reilly bowed again and handed an envelope to the earl, who looked at it with blazing contempt. Short of making a scene that would set the tongues of the ton wagging for weeks, Trevor knew he had no alternative but to take the envelope and open it. He pulled the single sheet of paper
out of the envelope, scanned it, then pinned the proprietor with a scathing look. “Get me something to write with,” he snapped. “And a bottle of brandy,” he added to the man’s hastily retreating back.

O’Reilly stood quietly, watching Trevor closely as Grace had asked, but also trying to take in as much of the famous club as he could. As far as he knew, nobody of his station had ever stepped foot inside the place.

Within moments a footman came running back with the requested items. He placed the writing utensils on the table in front of Trevor, opened the brandy, and poured it into the earl’s glass. He glanced surreptitiously around the table, wondering if his lordship wished to share the bottle with his companions.

Without noticing or caring about the servant’s consternation, Trevor hastily scrawled a reply on the back of the note Grace had sent, shoved it back into its envelope, and thrust it at O’Reilly. The proprietor escorted the small man from the building with all due haste.

As soon as the door closed behind him, buzzing whispers began filling the room, each man present vying to beat one another in the race to report the extraordinary news that the impulsive Miss Ackerly had chased the Earl of Huntwick into the exclusively male domain of White’s. When the shameless gossiping reached an unprecedented level, Trevor finally lost his patience. He tossed down the remainder of the brandy in his glass and stood abruptly. He gave the entire room a sweeping glare of blazing fury, effectively silencing everyone. As soon as the whispers ceased, he turned and stalked out of the club, his winnings left in a pile in the center of the table.

The stillness held for a moment after his footsteps receded. Everyone stared in amazement after the usually imperturbable earl. Then, as if by collective agreement, they all made a leap for the famed betting book, leaving Gareth, Jonathon, and Sebastian almost alone in the room.

“I’m surprised you didn’t go with them, Gareth,” the Earl of Seth said with a reproving look at his grinning brother. “I’d have thought you’d be the first in line at the book.”

Gareth stood. An alert footman rushed over with his coat and hat. “I was,” he informed Jonathon loftily. “I placed my bet yesterday.” And with that quelling statement Gareth strolled smugly off, leaving his brother scowling. Black-thorne, looking bemused, quietly watched him go.

G
race, Faith, and Amanda, the Countess of Seth, were in the sitting room enjoying a relaxing cup of tea when O’Reilly finally returned. He handed the envelope, now torn and slightly crumpled, to Grace. She ripped the note from inside and read the two small words aloud. “ ‘Don’t bother.’ ” She turned the piece of paper over to make certain she had not missed anything, then looked at O’Reilly. “What did he say? How did he look? Was he angry?” The questions tumbled from her lips in rapid succession.

“Well, Miss Grace, he never really said anything at all, and I think his immediate reaction when he saw me was shock, not anger.”

“Shock?” Faith asked, perplexed. That particular reaction had not occurred to her.

O’Reilly reflected a moment, then nodded. “Yes, it was shock, although now that I think about it, it could have been because I’m probably one of the last people he expected to see in White’s.”

“White’s!” the girls cried. Now all the ton might know of Grace’s pursuit.

“Yes, and he looked just as you do now, Miss Grace!” O’Reilly pointed at Grace, happy to have an example in order to save himself the description.

“Oh, my God,” said Faith, with more feeling than she’d intended. She bit her lip and wished she had not said it as she watched the color drain from her sister’s stricken face.

Grace sank down limply on the settee, too stunned even to think. Amanda sat next to her and put an arm about her friend’s shoulders. “What did he
do?
” Amanda asked O’Reilly, patting Grace’s hand soothingly. Faith handed a cup of tea to her sister, which she automatically drank, though she hardly tasted the warm brew.

“Well,” said O’Reilly slowly, looking in confusion from one girl to another. They were not reacting at all as he had expected.

“Go on, O’Reilly,” Grace prompted. She gave a weak but encouraging smile.

“He looked quite angry when I handed him the note, although it seemed to be the note itself he was angry with, not me.”

That made perfect sense to Grace, even if it did not to O’Reilly, so she nodded for him to continue.

“Then he asked one of those hoity-toity servants for a bottle of brandy and something to write with. When those came, he wrote the answer, handed me the note, and I left.”

Grace turned stricken eyes on Faith and Amanda. “It’s early yet,” Amanda soothed, giving Grace’s slim shoulders an encouraging squeeze. She gave Faith an anxious look over her friend’s head. “Perhaps the club wasn’t very crowded,” she added, with more conviction than she really felt.

“Oh, yes, it was, my lady,” supplied O’Reilly, eager to give as much information as possible.“We had to work our way through many filled tables in order to reach Lord Caldwell’s. They were sitting quite in the center of the room, you see, so it was most difficult to reach them from any direction.”

“They?” Faith asked. She closed her eyes, certain she really
did not want to hear with whom Trevor had shared his table.

“Lord Caldwell, the Duke of Blackthorne, your husband, and his brother, my lady,” he said, turning toward Amanda.

Grace and Faith immediately turned imploring looks in Amanda’s direction. She stood in a flurry of pink silk. “I’m going,” she said grimly. With a reassuring look, she left to summon home Jonathon and Gareth for some damage control.

O’Reilly returned from seeing Amanda to the door and stopped hesitantly near the two quiet figures seated in the parlor. “Miss Grace, did I not do precisely as you requested?” His voice shook with concern.

Grace’s heart went out to him. He had only tried to do what he thought she wanted. With a valiant effort, she smiled up at him sweetly and replied, “You did exactly as I asked, O’Reilly, and I thank you.”

Much relieved, the footman bowed and left the room, his step light as he returned to his duties.

Grace watched him go, then turned to Faith. “Trevor will never forgive me for this. It’ll be the topic of gossip for weeks.” Her voice was glum, as she’d lost the hope that had sustained her for the past two days.

Faith looked equally grim. “That’s the least of your worries,” she stated flatly. “Your own reputation will suffer when it becomes known that you sent O’Reilly into White’s to appeal to Huntwick. Society is well used to women chasing after Trevor, but there are rules, and I’m certain no one else has been as brazen as that. We’ll have to hope that since he was in Egerton livery, it will be supposed that O’Reilly was there on business for Aunt Cleo.”

Grace looked skeptical. “And what do you think the chances of that would be?”

Faith shook her head. “His lordship has made no secret of his attraction to you. That information, combined with
the way he publicly reacted to your message, leaves me very discouraged, indeed.”

As it turned out, Amanda did not have to track down her brother-in-law. As soon as she entered the house Desmond, the Seth butler, informed her that Lord Gareth was waiting in the library and that he had asked for her. Amanda thanked him and handed him her cloak before hurrying through the foyer to the library.